Chinese Toolbox READER Screenshot

Chinese Toolbox READER (aka ?Chinese Toolbox?, and ?Chinese Toolbox 2011?) helps you learn Chinese while you read online or digitized Chinese texts that are interesting to you.

Chinese Toolbox is not merely a Chinese dictionary, or a Chinese reader program, or a Chinese reading assistant. It is software to help you really learn to read Chinese, and in learning to read Chinese, you are learning the language itself: radicals, characters, words, phrases, idioms, how words and phrases contextually fit together. The more and better you?re able to read, the better you?ll be able to communicate verbally with others. Features are built in to the program to help you do more reading and less translating. No other program helps you to rely less on built-in dictionaries through ?marking for unassisted reading? while still providing full access to the dictionaries.
Program features include: (1) a unique system of learning promoting true reading by helping you to reduce dictionary dependence; (2) a fully customizable character dictionary; (3) a community supported, updatable word dictionary with over 100,000 entries; (4) automatic look up of definitions and pronunciations showing both pinyin and zhuyin (Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, Bopomofo); (5) multi-field search; (6) a system of smart character review; (7) character time stamping; (8) and many other features.

As you read with Chinese Toolbox, the system allows you to effortlessly mark characters and words you already know. Those characters or words are marked as ?known? (or recognizable), and they appear in the reader differently from other characters and words to distinguish them from those you don?t recognize. In other words, they are marked for unassisted reading. The program doesn?t automatically show the meanings of characters and words marked as known. If you happen to forget the meaning or pronunciation of a known character or word, simply press the spacebar again to show the respective dictionary entries.